alan test blog

A few days ago I was in the van carpooling with the Health Delivery, Inc. staff to the migrant clinic in Imlay City, and I overheard one of the WIC staffmembers talking about a patient who had 11 children and had recently gotten married. "Eleven children is a lot of children to have with no husband" I said. "Don't you know Emily, nobody gets married any more!" the staffmember told me, sounding a little annoyed at my judgmental comment. I felt ashamed of myself. The truth is, I was definitely judging this woman. "Who is paying to raise 11 children?" I had been wondering. Not really wondering--I was feeling put upon as a taxpayer, that almost certainly this single mother living in Saginaw, receiving health care at a free clinic, was not taking financial responsibility for her nearly dozen children. It is tough not to feel less than sympathetic for some of our patients. And that is sad--both for me and for them. I really try not to judge people, but I do it anyway, almost every day.

Hi all! Emily here. I am the only LMUVer who stayed here in Michigan, and let me tell you about all the tanning and sightseeing I am doing in this lovely weather. Um, none. But I am having a wonderful hodge-podge of a time working outpatient family medicine Mondays and Wednesdays at the Imlay City migrant clinic and Tuesdays and Fridays at the Shiawassee clinic in Owosso. Thursdays I work with a psychiatrist, Dr. Lenhart, at the Bay City county jail, the Cathedral House free clinic, and Bay Arenac Behavioral health. Dr. Lenhart seems to have the patience of Job, and I have seen so much just after one day. Almost all of his patients' mental health issues--depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia--are complicated by substance abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, violent crime, or any combination of the aforementioned. On Sunday evening Dr. Lenhart invited me to the Mustard Seed, a homeless shelter run through Catholic Worker House that takes in women and children. The Catholic Worker House runs charitable offices across the country, and coincidentally my mother and sister have been volunteering as ESL tutors for years with a CWH charity out in California. Last Saturday I worked in the ER at Covenant with Dr. Wagner, and I saw a patient with toxic shock syndrome and a patient with pseudotumor cerebri. Since my patient population of interest is Latino immigrants, my favorite site so far is the Imlay Migrant clinic. And though I am not eating mangoes and touring rain forests, I bet I am learning almost as much new medical vocabulary in Spanish as my classmates abroad. For example, "comezon" means "itchy" in Mexican Spanish, and "flujo vaginal" means vaginal discharge (sorry to all the non-medical people reading this but it's handy to know how to say that). Anyway I am off to bed so I can be ready to head up to Imlay tomorrow. Les deseo muy buenas noches a todos!